A member of my gourmet club came over from Korea to visit, and after some thought about where to go, I booked a Michelin-starred yakitori place in Kinshicho. Originally I wanted to go to one of those hard-to-book places, but in Japan the hard-to-book places need a reservation at least three months in advance..
Yebisu draft beer
We started with beer. The softness of the foam was outstanding. It ranks among the best beers I have ever had.
Tsukemono (pickles)
This came as the otoshi appetizer. After wondering what to eat today, we went for the course, which is very reasonably priced and brings out a wide variety of dishes. (In the end the drinks cost more than the food.)
Sasami (chicken tender) wasabi-yaki
It starts with light, clean-tasting items. Very fresh, and it went well with the wasabi.
Daikon oroshi
This is also a great snack to go with drinks.
Koshu wine
I tried a Japanese wine to go with the yakitori. Koshu wine tends to match Japanese food well, and as expected it made a safe pairing.
Small onions and kashiwa
Nicely grilled and delicious.
Nanohana greens dressed with wasabi
This was also good with drinks.
Chigimo
It is chicken liver, and very fresh.
Nasu (eggplant), tsukune
The grilling was just right, but I thought they could be a bit bigger.
Lemon
They brought this out in advance to use with the dishes to come.
Nimono (simmered vegetables)
Again, perfect with drinks.
Nihonshu
We switched to a sake called Roman from Fukushima. Maybe because it is namazake (unpasteurized), the aroma was simply beautiful. It was so good that we ordered the same one a few more times.
Shirotama, sunagimo
Shirotama are quail eggs and sunagimo is chicken gizzard.
Kawa
Chicken skin is crispy but tends to be quite greasy. That is why a bad job on the skin makes it terribly bad, but this place was different.
Tomato
Japanese tomatoes taste very sweet.
Ginnan (ginkgo nuts)
Fun to pop them off one by one. The drinks went down fast.
Tebayaki
Grilled chicken wings. There are bones, but they come off easily, and the taste is of course top class.
Shiitake
For some reason this mushroom reminded me of the shiitake at Mitsumasa in Shimbashi.
Kashiwa
Delicious.
Soup
A clean-tasting soup comes out.
As befits a Michelin one-star, the service and atmosphere were nearly perfect. Thanks to that, I drank way too much that night. After wondering where to go for round two, we ended up visiting the home of one of the members who came that day..